fter Horace Boyer's
rousing lecture on gospel music, two things
are clear: Gospel doesn't receive the credit it deserves and
Boyer may have missed his calling.

Boyer, a professor emeritus of music theory and African American
music at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, traced gospel's
evolution during a talk Oct. 20 at the Rome Commons Ballroom.

Like a captivating preacher, he began his talk with statements
that a non-believer might have found tough to swallow, and then
proceeded to speak, sing and play the facts that proved his
point.

"Gospel music is the most arresting music of the last half of
the 20th century and is still reigning as we almost reach the
end of the first year of this century," Boyer said. "It is not
only being sung in liturgical churches.

It is even being used to sell McDonald's hamburgers and Oscar
Mayer hotdogs."

His lecture was part of Celebrating Shout and Song, a daylong
symposium celebrating the University's acquisition of the Samuel
and Ann Charters Archives of Blues and African American Vernacular
Music.

Modern gospel music began in 1906, Boyer said, when the woman
who later founded the black Pentecostal church spoke in tongues
at a revival.

"She resurrected that joyous music that had been sung during
slavery," he said.

Racing between a piano, where he performed snippets of songs,
a stereo he used to play some of the music he mentioned, and
the podium, Boyer noted that slaves sang spirituals in order
to give themselves the energy to keep working. Ministers in
the early 20th century needed music that would generate the
enthusiasm of those older spirituals. Gospel filled this need,
but wasn't embraced by everyone.

"When the music first came out, black Baptists and Methodists
were so embarrassed," he said. "The Baptists and Methodists
said, 'These people have set us back 40 years,' but they kept
listening to this sanctified music."

Mainstream religions stayed away from gospel until 1921 when
the National Baptist Convention issued a gospel hymnal that
introduced many gospel greats. While more denominations were
discovering gospel music, its influence was also being felt
in other musical disciplines.

"All African American music comes out of the same pot," Boyer
said.

Harmonizing male a capella quartets, which have their roots
in gospel, evolved to become one of the most important musical
ensembles in the black community, he said. As these groups were
embraced by and reflected African Americans, black church groups
did their best to distance themselves.

"The black church choirs were trying to sing Bach and Handel.
They hesitated to sing what they knew," Boyer said. "You were
taught to be un-black."

Because black church choirs avoided singing gospel, male quartets
dominated the music scene until Mahalia Jackson became popular
in the 1950s, Boyer said.

"Mahalia was the epitome of the gospel singer because not only
did she have a beautiful voice, but she sang in such a way that
you thought she was singing for you," he said.

With Jackson's arrival, gospel went mainstream, Boyer said.
Gospel singers began to appear on popular television shows like
Dinah Shore and Ed Sullivan, and gospel night clubs sprang up
around the country.

"As we entered the middle '60s, black gospel had elevated itself
and was on the lips of half the people in the United States,"
Boyer said.

With gospel music enjoying a new popularity, singers tried adapting
the music for choirs.

"The gospel choir was pitiful. Well, they were just alright
until James Cleveland did something with them," Boyer said,
to looks and laughs from members of UConn's Voices of Freedom
choir, who attended and performed during his talk. "By this
time, with James Cleveland - the first gospel singer to perform
at Carnegie Hall - gospel had taken over the black community.
This wasn't an easy thing to do because black intellectuals
felt it didn't complement their lifestyles. Gospel, like the
blues, was blue-collar music."

By the late 1960s, gospel's appeal broadened even further when
Edwin Hawkins' version of "Oh, Happy Day" was sent to white
radio stations instead of black gospel stations, Boyer said.

"All of a sudden, black gospel became American popular music,"
Boyer told the crowd, as he played a recording of Hawkins' top
10 hit.

Gospel has remained popular for the last several decades, with
singers like Kirk Franklin becoming stars by fusing it with
other musical forms.

And, according to Boyer, gospel's influence will continue to
be far-reaching.

"Gospel has influenced every type of music since its time,"
he said, "and it is the music that captures the soul."